Automatic continuity for the unitary group (Q2845442)

The author establishes the following important result on automatic continuity for unitary groups: The unitary (respectively, orthogonal) group of an infinite-dimensional, separable, complex (respectively, real) Hilbert space, equipped with the strong operator topology, has the automatic continuity property. This result answers a question of \textit{C. Rosendal} [Isr. J. Math. 166, 349--367 (2008; Zbl 1155.54025)].NEWLINENEWLINE Next, the author establishes the following corollary: Let \(G\) be the unitary or the orthogonal group. Then the following hold: (i) \(G\) admits a unique separable group topology; (ii) if \(G'\) is a Polish group and \(\phi: G\to G'\) a homomorphism, then \(\phi(G)\) is a closed subgroup of \(G'\). This corollary rules out the existence of non-trivial homomorphisms from \(U(H)\) to Polish locally compact groups, or Polish groups admitting a left-invariant complete metric or Polish totally disconnected groups.NEWLINENEWLINE Another corollary of the theorem is that the quotient of the unitary group by the normal subgroup of unitary operators that differ from the identity by a compact operator does not admit a non-trivial homomorphism to a separable group. This generalizes \textit{D. Pickrell's} result [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 102, No. 2, 416--420 (1988; Zbl 0664.22014)] that this group does not admit continuous non-trivial unitary representations on a separable Hilbert space.